The Kindness of Strangers

So our trip to Columbia to speak at the R.E.A.C.H. 2017 Expo turned into an adventure.  A couple of days ago, the van decided to just click instead of start when I, Stephen, turned the key.  But then it started right up, and continued to do so for a few days.

We drove up to Columbia the night before so we wouldn't have to get up super early.  The hotel was nice and convenient to the venue, but had a very small breakfast, but Waffle House was right across the street!!! With plenty of time to spare, we finish a big hot breakfast, walk out to the van, and click, nothing! ARGH!!!!

The gentleman in the next booth comes out as I am realizing that the brand new battery connector I recently put on had not made a good connection to the starter, and melted the housing, pushing the wire out, thus the click.  I only had one problem   . . . somehow my tool set had been removed from the van.  So there I stood with a button down shirt and dress shoes attempting to fix the van.


He normally has tools in his truck, but drove his car today.  Luckily his daughter had bought him small tool kit for the car.  Sadly, it didn't have the right tools for this situation.  Since he lived right down the road, he 'ran' home to get the right tools.  He returned shortly, with a brand new set of Allen wrenches so we could finish fixing the van and make it to a parts store.  Once I arrived at the parts store, and bought a $6 part, they let me borrow all the tools needed to completely replace the connector and re-crimp all the wires.  All this left us with 12 minutes to get back the the venue, now 10 minutes away.

Then all the people in line where we needed go to get into the event, saw me sweaty, greasy-handed with a back pack, and just let me 'cut' in line to enter and cleaned up before my talk.  None of these people knew me or ever met me before, thus the title of this post.